Monday, February 19, 2018

February is Black History Month, which I'm happily observing this week by watching Lena Waithe's fabulous The Chi on Showtime; reading the time-travel classic Kindred, by Octavia Butler, visiting the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum in Joshua Tree; and lining up for Black Panther.

February is also Women in Horror Month. I hadn't remembered that until today, because, well, it's been Women in Horror Year, now into Year Two of the horror.

But my name and books always pop up for Women in Horror month in my Twitter feed and on my Facebook page (like this review of Hunger Moon in Cemetery Dance)
because that's where I started as an author, and did quite a lot of as a
screenwriter before that. Being a woman in horror gained me some
instant recognition, because there are so few of us writing if. In fact,
I was just at The Last Bookstore in downtown LA this week, and the
"Horror Vault" (a literal bank vault) consisted of shelves of male
authors plus Anne Rice, whose books I love, but to my mind she's not
really a horror writer at all.

And neither am I, any more, for many reasons.

There’s definitely a bias in the industry against female horror authors. It
doesn’t affect me in a practical sense because I’ve moved into writing very dark thrillers rather than overt horror. I love both
genres; I went back and forth between the two, or crossed the two, as a
screenwriter – and I’m a full-time writer, so I’m not about to
struggle against a genre that disparages women AND doesn’t pay as well
as the thriller genre.

Beyond that, I’d really rather not use the word “horror” to describe even my four supernatural novels
because I think the genre has been brought to a very low, base level by torture porn. I find
it disgusting and harmful. It doesn’t deserve to be listed with the true
psychological horror of Jackson, Lovecraft, Shelley, King, Poe – the
great explorers of the dark side. I don’t write torture porn and I won’t
read or watch it, either.

But there's no question that
part of my brand as an author is mixing elements of horror with crime. I
started that with my witch thriller Book of Shadows,
which crosses a police procedural with an exploration of modern
witchcraft practice and the possibility of demonic possession and
satanic murder.

But I really found my stride with theHuntress Moonseries,
which confronts the existential horror of sexual abuse, sexual assault
and sex trafficking in a realistic FBI procedural. The collective evil
of sexual predation and the laws and social systems that defend and
perpetuate sexual abuse take on an almost supernatural presence in the
books, without ever becoming overtly supernatural.

I
use techniques I learned writing horror for both books and film to
create that creeping sense of suspense and evil, and it gets readers
turning pages ever though I'm writing blatantly social and political
themes and confronting real legal deficiencies and institutional
atrocities.

It's made the series quite successful as
books and led to a TV deal, because this is just the kind of edgy
boundary-pushing that is finally, finally popular in television now.

Using
horror to explore social and political issues can be powerfully
effective, as we saw last year in Jordan Peele's razor-sharp,
game-changing Get Out.

And I just read Kindred, the
classic, brilliant, brutal time travel/neo slave narrative novel by the
Grande Dame of science fiction, Octavia Butler (my way of celebrating both Black History and Women in Horror at once).

Kindred takes its 1970's
African American heroine, Dana, on a harrowing time trip back to the
1815 plantation where her ancestors were enslaved, and she must both
survive the constant atrocities of the time, and guard her white plantation ancestor from harm in order
to preserve her own family line.

Nowthat's horror -
the horror of slavery that we've never healed as a nation, so evident
in the racism which is rising up around and apparently in us
again today. (People in my neighborhood got it delivered right to their
doorsteps this week: racism not only in the headlines, but in the white
supremacist flyers that someone had slipped into the newspapers).

And
of course, using horror to explore philosophical and political issues
of the day goes back much, much farther than that. Consider Mary
Shelley, whose Frankenstein is being feted all over the world on
its bicentennial anniversary. Her themes of the moral implications of
scientific exploration and the failings of the patriarchy still resonate
powerfully today.

So how about you authors out there?
Have you ever considered using the conventions and sugarcoating of
genre to deliver the themes that are most important to you?

And readers, do you have favorite genre-benders that carry a potent social or political or philosophical message?

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In the new
book, Roarke and his FBI team are forced to confront the new political
reality when they are pressured to investigate a series of mysterious
threats vowing death to college rapists... while deep in the Arizona
wilderness, mass killer Cara Lindstrom is fighting a life-and-death
battle of her own.

I really had
that driven home for me as I was writing Writing Love (Screenwriting Tricks II). I made a master list of ten love stories in
different subgenres (in this case not always my favorites,
because I wanted to have a broad range of romantic stories for analysis and
discussion) and broke them down in depth to find the key story elements
specific to that umbrella genre. And oh, did it turn the lights on for me.

I’m going to
share some of those with you now, because whether or not you write romance or
romantic comedy, you’ll almost always have a love plot in your story, so it’s
useful for writers of all genres to be aware of common love story elements.

The following
are some scenes and setups that are very typical in romance and romantic
comedy. You can do a similar list of specific elements for any genre, and I highly encourage you to do so — it’s another way
to master your craft.

I’ve tried to
focus mostly on plot points or premises instead of just gags or bits — that is,
these are actual story elements that can help you build a story if you use them
wisely. And these elements will often overlap with the key story elements we’ve
been discussing: that is, the CALL TO ADVENTURE in a love story might be a case
of FATE INTERVENES; THE PLAN might be to PRETEND WE’RE MARRIED; THE HERO/INE’S
GHOST might show up at the MIDPOINT and radically shift the dynamics of the
story, and so on.

Now, any of
these love story elements can be done badly and devolve into the worst kind of
cliché. The point of knowing the common elements is to be aware they’ve been
done before and find your own unique ways of using them, if you’re going to use
them.

I’m not going to
waste time on the clichés, for which there probably is no hope, ever, but
here’s my own partial list of those clunkers, which I’m sure you can add to:

In a love story,
while the INCITING INCIDENT that starts off the story action may be a job
offer, a wedding invitation, a mis-booked hotel room, or any other inciting
incident common to any genre, the actual CALL TO ADVENTURE in a love story is
very, very often that first look at the beloved. This is why so often that
first look seems on the surface to be HATE AT FIRST SIGHT — it’s a variation on
the RELUCTANT HERO/INE (or REFUSAL OF THE CALL). When we meet that true love,
there’s often as much or more fear and panic involved as joy and relief. Life
is never going to be the same, and we know it.

LOVE INTEREST
INTRODUCED AS COMPLETE IDIOT

An example of
MISAPPREHENSION, which is a form of MISTAKEN IDENTITY. Bridget Jones’ Diary, New in Town.

THE HERO/INE’S
GHOST

In a love story,
the Ghost or Wound is most often related to love and attachment, obviously: the
heroine’s parents died when she was a child (The Proposal), the hero’s father has had a succession of failed
marriages (Made of Honor, You’ve Got Mail),
the heroine’s father was always chasing rainbows, impoverishing the family (Leap Year).

The Ghost often
comes out deep into the story in a confessional scene in which the hero/ine
reveals to the love interest WHY I’M LIKE THIS (often at the MIDPOINT), but
it’s generally better storytelling to dramatize it. For example, in You’ve Got Mail, when Tom Hanks’ father
leaves his much younger wife and moves in with Tom in his temporary crash pad
(boat), we see Tom realize he doesn’t want to be like his father and that he
loves Meg (which in this story is THE ACT TWO CLIMAX/REVELATION into the FINAL
BATTLE).

HANDCUFF THE
COUPLE TOGETHER

In Romancing the Stone, Joan needs Jack to
take her out of the jungle and back to Cartagena; Jack needs Joan’s money
because he’s just lost all the rare birds he was smuggling. In The Proposal, Margaret needs Andrew to
pretend he’s married to her so she won’t be deported, and she threatens him
with career annihilation if he refuses; Andrew agrees to do it if Margaret
promotes him and publishes a book he loves.

In Leap Year, Anna needs Declan to take her
to Dublin; Declan needs Anna’s money to save his pub from foreclosure. In What Happens in Vegas, a judge orders
Cameron Diaz and Aston Kutcher to remain married for six months if they want to
split the three million dollar casino payoff they won together. (This story
beat is also often an OFFER S/HE CAN’T
REFUSE.)

A common
variation on Handcuffing the Couple
Together is:

FATE (OR THE
WEATHER) INTERVENES

It’s amazing how
often romantic comedy uses this device. Fate, very often in the form of the
weather, prevents the hero/ine from leaving town (New in Town, Groundhog Day) or deposits them on the opposite side
of the country from where they are supposed to be (Leap Year) so that the hero/ine can meet his or her true love.

This is
especially well done in Groundhog Day,
as I talk about at length in my breakdown of
that classic film— I swear, those clouds are scheming.

THE OFFER S/HE
CAN’T REFUSE

A plot point
that usually comes early in the first act: the hero/ine is locked into a
situation because his/her boss or family or a judge gives them an ultimatum — e.g.
in The Proposal, if Margaret does not
fake a marriage with Andrew, she will be deported. Also see New in Town, Leap Year, What Happens in
Vegas.

MISTAKEN
IDENTITY OR FALSE IDENTITY

False identity was
a staple for Shakespeare’s comedies, and is still widely used in romantic
comedy, sometimes as a scene or sequence (pretending to be a sister or a
fiancée), sometimes as the whole premise of the story: While You Were Sleeping, Tootsie.

GETTING TO KNOW
YOU

I don’t have to
explain this one, do I? It’s the first time the hero and heroine let down their
respective guards and start to spill personal information. It’s very often done
very badly, as an information dump.

COUPLE FORCED TO
PRETEND THEY’RE MARRIED

A staple of
romantic comedy; it can be a scene, as in Leap
Year where Anna and Declan must pretend to be married in order to get a
room for the night at a bed & breakfast owned by religiously conservative
proprietors, or it can be the whole premise of the story: whether it’s to get
an inheritance or some other large chunk of money (What Happens in Vegas), or get a green card (The Proposal, Green Card).

LET’S PRETEND
WE’RE MARRIED

A different kind
of scene, more spontaneous — in which the couple find themselves digging in a
garden or working well together in a kitchen (Leap Year) or one of them talks the other off an emotional ledge
(Sally gently calming Harry down after he explodes in front of their best
friends in When Harry Met Sally), and
we get a glimpse of the well-matched couple they would be.

TICKING CLOCK

A staple of all
genres, often used very unconvincingly, so be careful. Some good examples: In Leap Year, Anna needs to get to Dublin
by Leap Day to propose to her reluctant boyfriend. In The Proposal, Margaret and Andrew have four days to get to know
each other well enough to convincingly pass themselves off as married to a
suspicious INS agent. At the climax of When
Harry Met Sally, Harry is desperate to get to a New Year’s Eve party in
time to kiss Sally at the stroke of midnight, something he utterly failed to do
the year before.

THE BET

Can be a scene,
or a whole premise, in which the hero/ine bets friends that s/he — usually he —
can bed or dump a lover in a certain timeframe (How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days). Or some other bet that leads to a
romantic entanglement (Pygmalion, My Fair
Lady).

EX-SEX

Sometimes the
second time is the charm. Or not. Sweet
Home Alabama, Philadelphia Story, It’s Complicated.

THE MAGICAL DAY
(YEAR, PLACE, HOUR)

The idea that
there is a magical day, or hour, or place, that will lead magically to true
love and/or marriage. Leap Year has a
heroine racing across Ireland in order to propose to her reluctant boyfriend on
Leap Day, when traditionally men are obliged to accept any proposal they
receive. Four Weddings and a Funeral
plays with the idea that a wedding is a magical moment in time in which not
only the bridal couple but anyone in attendance can find true love.

WHY THEM?

This is
appallingly lacking in most love stories: some indicator of why we’re supposed
to want this couple to get together to begin with. I know, love is a hard thing
to define, but please, give us something!
Some common explanations:

This is one of
the most crucial scenes in any romance or romantic subplot, and one that goes a
long way toward explaining WHY THEM? The Dance is a scene in which we see that
two people are perfect for each other: they have the same rhythm, they work
around each other’s flaws, they have the same passion, they complete each
other. One of my favorites is the beautiful scene in Sense and Sensibility in which Edward and Elinor coax Elinor’s
younger sister, Margaret, out from where she has been hiding under the library
table by pretending ignorance of the source of the Nile. We see that Edward and
Elinor are perfectly matched: both intelligent, witty, sensitive, kind, and
off-the-wall. They are at their most charming when they’re together, and we are
totally committed to the relationship by the end of the short scene. So much
more meaningful than “Meet Cute”!

In fact, I’m going to end
right there because THE DANCE is just that important to get right! How about it
–

Can you identify THE DANCE in
Notting Hill? In Groundhog Day? In The
Proposal?

Even better, can you give me
some examples of THE DANCE, maybe in your favorite romantic movie? Extra bonus
points for Youtube links to clips!!

STEALING HOLLYWOODThis new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding sixmore full story breakdowns.

Friday, February 09, 2018

I recently did a Skype session with a writing
group, and I started it as I always start a workshop, with these questions:

1. The genre of your
WIP (Work in Progress) 2. The premise
of your book - the story in one or two sentences.

3 . A list of TEN books and films (at least fivefilms)in your genre that are somewhat similar to
your book structurally.

Just that bit of information on my audience
or students helps me focus the session or class so that everyone gets the most
out of our time together. And you know what I find over and over?

Very few people can tell me about their ONE
book.

Because most of the participants have five, six,
seven, even eight (I’m dying here…) book
or story projects going at once.

Oh. My. God.

Over the years I have been astonished at how many people in my workshops have multiple
projects in various stages of completion. It's not astonishing at all that most
of these people remain unpublished. Because published authors are writers who
suck it up and FINISH their books. They COMMIT. They deal with the reality of
what they have written instead of the fantasy of what they thought they were
writing. They develop the Teflon skin that allows them to put their work out
there to be criticized—and yes, rejected. Lots of rejection.Get free Story Structure extras and movie breakdowns
Some of these unfinished projects will never be good enough to be published.
The unfortunate truth of writing is that you won't know that until you finish.
But you have to become a writer who finishes what you start, even if you then
have to throw a whole completed project away once in a while. That is part of
the process of becoming a professional writer. You must figure out how to
FINISH every book you write.

So here’s the takeaway.

DON’T write a new book. FINISH the old
one.

I am pretty sure that what most aspiring authors need to be doing is using the
New Year, or Junowrimo, or Nanowrimo, wherever you are in the year, to FINISH
an old book.

Part of that process is picking the right premise to begin with. But another
critical part of that process is ramming your head into a concrete wall
(metaphorically speaking) until you're battered and bloody but you finally
figure out how to make that particular book work. Some books are just harder
than others, but you must demonstrate to the Universe that you are willing to
do whatever it takes to make ANY book work. It's a trust thing. Your books must
trust you to fully commit to them.

And that time is NEVER wasted, even if you never make money off that book. It
is professional and more importantly - CREATIVE development.

I have a book hidden in my files in the Cloud that I could be making quite a
lot of money on if I just self-published it, or even had my agent go for a traditional
publishing deal on it. People would buy it and a lot of readers would enjoy it.
One of my trusted Beta readers says it’s her favorite of all my books.

I know all that.

But for me
- it's not as good as the rest of my books and I don't want it out there.
It just doesn’t have the theme, the MEANING I want in my books.

I finished it, evaluated it—and then put it away
and wrote another.

That was a big gap in my publishing schedule,
let me tell you. Good thing I had some savings.

BUT—my next book wasHuntress Moon, a real breakthrough in my writing. It was the book and series I
was meant to write. The Huntress series combines my political and social
activism, my rage at the abuse of children and women and the plain fact that we
are not yet as a society committed to ENDING that abuse, and my skill at
working those issues into highly readable thrillers. Because I’ve written this
series, I honestly could die right now and feel that I’d fulfilled one crucial
thing I was meant to do on this planet.

So my putting that other book away? I don't
think that's a coincidence. I think my creative mind and the Universe
understood that I was finally ready to do more, mean more, with my writing.

So I beg you all, just as I am begging my workshop students. If you haven't
finished the book you're on, DON'T start a new book for Junowrimo, or
Nanowrimo, or the New Year, just because.

Commit to the book you're already writing, in whatever stage of the process
you're at, and finish THAT one.

And then go get published.
- Alex

(This week I heard from a good friend, a fabulous director and writing professor, who says she passed this post of mine on to a student of hers - who took the advice, FINISHED her book, and just landed an agent! Just saying....)

STEALING HOLLYWOODThis new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding sixmore full story breakdowns.